Dependence and Fictional Characters

ABSTRACT

The artefactual theory of fiction holds that fictional characters are abstract and created artefacts like money and nations. One of its main proponents, Amie Thomasson, holds that fictional characters are ontologically dependent on a particular author or authors (rigid historical dependence) for their origin and on literary works for continued existence (generic constant dependence). While there have been objections to Thomasson's position, both the dependencies are dogmas held among artefactualists and the criticisms haven't yet systematically undermined them. In this paper, I argue against these two dependency claims by citing counterexamples, especially from a Twin Homer case, Fission Fiction case, No Man's Sky, a computer game, where an algorithm creates a character and in another instance, by showing how we humans actually create characters. If my arguments are sound, then a realist like Thomasson has no option to make sense of the data they set up for their theory apart from accepting Everett and Schroeder's theory that fictional characters are ideas. In the light of this, I set up a new criterion for the continued existence of fictional characters wherein they're ideas.